


Some Spineless, Green-eyed Thing

by Dancains



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Experimenting with prose style, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:58:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancains/pseuds/Dancains
Summary: William Gibson muses--Or, how very little separates sodomy and stewardship





	Some Spineless, Green-eyed Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Wouldn't it be great if there was some content with my two favorite supporting Terror characters interacting  
> Me @ myself: You could..write it yourself  
> Me: I mean. I guess

Jopson grunts as he sits heavily in one of the chairs, a rare sound from his lips. Even more rare, he has wordlessly accepted the cigarette from Billy's grasp, taking a tired drag before it's idly passed between hands. They both know enough to have removed their cotton gloves.

The smoke is expertly hand-rolled, a task at which Billy had once feigned ignorance, just so he could gain the intimacy of Cornelius' instructions. He's not sure if the man had been truly deceived, but he had spoken to Billy in such sweet, honeyed tones as he wet the paper with the dart of his tongue.

They've cleared the china away more quickly than usual, and it is their few moments of early evening respite. Eventually, they must both tend to the captain and officers, respectively, in their nightly rituals. But, for this long, solitary moment in a sea of frozen pearl, they are left to their own devices.

In his mind Jopson is, well, Jopson, even if the other steward had once invited Billy to call him by his Christian name. They weren't friends, exactly, or Billy didn't think so. They could have been, and they were, at the least, cordial. One has to be, to do what they do.

Tonight, it does give him some small pleasure to see that the infallible Jopson is just as human as he, his polish-smooth edges showing their rough in these stolen seconds. It's easy to forget that the man comes from lower means than himself, excepting for the faint inflection of London's fog and soot and grime that carries in his voice.

But tonight they are a pale imitation of proper ladies or wives, obediently set aside while the gentleman retire with their drinks and pipes and important conversation.

_To think, you were such a good wife to me all these months._

Billy has privately suspected for a long while, without any truly defining or damning evidence, that Jopson was a man of his own proclivities. A nance, in cruder terms.

Regardless of inclination, there was no doubt--with his innocent eyes and supple mouth and a demeanor so inclined to be servile--that he had caught the attention of many a man. He could only imagine Jopson ten, or even fifteen years prior, a newly-enlisted face, without the perpetual shadow peppering his jaw or the tired redness now gilding his eyes. Cherubic and rose-cheeked like a girl, overly eager to please.

There was no doubt, men had looked. But of course, duteous, righteous Mr. Jospon would never return their gaze. Would never encourage their glances and touches--especially those of some coarse, vulgar seaman. He was a faithful servant to queen and country.

Or, perhaps, the captain's steward was secretly just as much of a whore as himself, Billy mused, taking a thoughtful drag of tobacco.

He was a faithful servant to queen and country and Crozier.

It was an ill-disposed fantasy that Billy entertained from time to time, Jopson--no _Thomas,_ reserved only for the Irishman's slurred drawl--on his knees for his captain, his lips strained and his eyes wet with devotion, or even on all fours for the man, taking it as gladly as if being fucked was just another of his endless duties. As if it were a cherished privilege of his inferior rank.

If Crozier ever sobered enough to bring himself to a cock-stand, that was.

However, even in these cruel imaginings, Jopson was above him, being buggered away in the comfort of the great cabin, while Billy was reduced to the cold, wet reality of the orlop. The dampness there had once seeped into the knees of his trousers, leaving a permanent chill in his limbs he could feel even now. A specter of his time with Cornelius, in each and every aching step.

In frigid actuality, Crozier's gaze held no lust for Jopson, or none that Gibson had detected. If anything, there was something pathetically paternal there, that a man more discerning might have hidden or smothered. Billy considered himself an expert in sparse few matters, though the chief one being the looks shared between men.

He has a crystal glass in his hand, the last coppery dregs of Madeira--left by one of the officers--now souring on his tongue. Irving's, probably, by where Billy was sat. Jopson never ate nor drank from their scraps. Was that what set a captain's steward apart from that of the subordinate officers'?

Billy wondered if Jopson could taste the residual tang of wine from the paper of the shared cigarette, lingering under the heady flavor of smoke. He wasn't as above it as he might have believed. From Irving's mouth to his to Jopson's, like a larger animal devouring one more slight which has in turned devoured another, except it was all the wrong way round. Where did it go from Jopson? To another's maw, surely. But _who?_

"I don't envy you," Billy says suddenly, as if uttering the words would will them into truth.

Jopson spooks, slightly, like some twitching rabbit or hare. He presses one strand of ink blackness back into its place, regaining his composure. "I didn't imagine that you would."

"I used to, almost. Tasked with the whim of one man, instead of several. But now, I think, his melancholy is wearing even on you."

He suspects Jospon will say something fiery in Crozier's defense, but when he speaks, Jopson only sounds tired. There are no more airs to be put on,

"We're all under a strain. Being where we are. How we are. I don't pretend otherwise. I'll do anything he requires to be done. To any end."

Burnt down almost to its last, the cigarette passes hands one final time. Billy puts it out in the wetness of the glass. It occurs to him, not for the first time, that they may truly die here. Jopson, too, is far from naive.

He expects that is the end of their exchange, but Jopson asks, "How do you find Terror's lieutenants, then? Their...dispositions?"

"You hear them in conversation every night, and much more often then that. In the great cabin and elsewhere. Surely, you have some grasp of their character."

In his mind, Billy takes his own stock of the three officers in question--

Hodgdson, always glib and jovial, had voyaged with Billy before, and perhaps found reason in that to be overly familiar, although in a way that was harmless and without ulterior motive. Billy found him tiring.

Irving, straight-laced and sanctimonious, whose little paintings scattered his desk and looked as if they were copied from some book or lithograph, though he owned few volumes besides the holy book. Irving, who, Billy suspected, created tasks and pretenses if only to force Billy to touch him, to be near to him. A hypocrite of the worst kind. He wondered what perverse emotions it would stir in him, if only he knew Billy's lips had been pressed to the smudged rim of Irving's glass.

"Lieutenant Little...seems a man of few words," says Jopson coolly.

And there, the other shoe drops.

It wouldn't be eminently unusual for the captain's steward to have some concern or regard for the officer who was his leader's second, at least by the confines of their vessel's hierarchy. If Crozier were to somehow perish, a possibility made even more tangible by the unexpected death of Sir John, it would be Little whose boots Jopson would be blacking. But there's something in his voice--a detached yet potent interest, so well disguised that Billy only recognizes it from his own employment.

Little, as dogged and obedient to old Crozier as Jopson was. Little, whose dark hair hung in his face, the same way the thick curls of Neptune's coat nearly obscured the animal's glassy, black eyes. Little, who passed messages from ship to ship like an unwanted child, who was always grasping for the most pessimistic of conclusions. 

Little, who didn't like Billy to shave him, who once flinched at his touch. His only act of unorthodoxy towards usual conduct, he rose early in the gray dim of the morning to complete the task in solitude. Perhaps he would have preferred another's hand to hold the straight razor. 

The captain always did had such an enviably close shave.

"And even fewer behind closed doors," Billy responds. "The most I could tell you about him, is that he has the most hair on his chest. Out of the three," he adds flippantly. He knew not what truly lurked in these men's thoughts or hearts, but the strange intimacy demanded of his position meant that he knew these men in a different way.

The knot in Jopson's throat twitched and bobbed, whatever emotion held in his green eyes left impenetrable. Billy plucked the last cut crystal glass from the sea of white linen, and stood to leave.


End file.
